Where Gods Fear to Go

by Angus Watson

“He’ll be more careful next time.”

  Next time, thought Sassa. Was this really going to happen?

  “There’s a fourth reason,” said Nether Barr. “I should have stopped Sealter from hurting those poor girls.”

  “Did you… know?” asked Sassa.

  “There were signs. He was always so keen to be with girls. He built canoes for them and took them off downriver. He taught them foraging and hunting by taking them on long trips into…” she shook her head. “I should have seen what he was doing. I am partly responsible.”

  “You are not,” said Sassa. “Not in the slightest.”

  “I’ve always felt guilty. But maybe you’re right. It’s moot anyway. I killed my baby. It is a weight I can no longer bear. That’s why I’m doing this.”

  The sandy path led to a long slickrock slope.

  “Up here, round a corner, and we’re there,” said Nether Barr. “It’s about a mile. Funny to be walking to one’s death. I’ve walked so many miles, but this will be my last. Most odd.”

  “Nether Barr, you can’t do it.” Sassa shook her head. “You die when you die, not when you choose to.”

  “No more protest. I am doing it. I have no close family, nobody to remember me. Will you remember me always, Sassa Lipchewer?”

  “Of course.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll raise my barter. Not only will the child, boy or girl, be called Nether Barr, but you will tell the child why they have that name and you and they will remember me for ever. Will you do that?”

  “No, because it’s not going to happen.”

  “Say for the sake of argument that it is going to happen, would you name your child after me, tell them about me, and remember me for ever?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. That’s settled. Now tell me about the man you killed–Hrolf the Painter.”

  “It’s not settled.”

  “Hrolf the Painter, please.”

  Sassa shook her head. They were halfway up the slickrock slope. She couldn’t let Nether Barr die for Wulf.

  But she was still walking.

  “Hrolf was attacked by a bear, shortly after we all left our village, Hardwork,” she said.

  “What was Hrolf like?”

  Sassa shuddered. “He was the most lecherous man alive. When he looked at you, you could feel his eyes creeping up under your clothes like worms.”

  “I know the type.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. So, the bear ran away, leaving Hrolf horribly injured. But not dead, not dead at all. Nobody was nearby and I suddenly had the idea to kill him.”

  “Gosh.”

  “Yes. So I took my knife –”

  Sassa continued the tale as the two women walked side by side up the hill, Calnians and Wootah following behind with Wulf’s body.

  The final section of track was narrow, high enough above bare rock to kill any normal person who fell. As Sassa finished telling Nether Barr about Hrolf, she realised she had hardly noticed a drop which would have given her the willies a moon before.

  The Magnificent Worm soared skyward from the side of the hill. All the other arches Sassa had seen, and she’d seen a few, looked like they were part of the landscape, the remnants of a block of rock that had mostly fallen away. This one stood alone, sprouting ridiculously from the rock; a twenty-pace-high stone bridge of shouldn’t-be-there.

  A wind-smoothed arena lay before the Magnificent Worm, as if carved for spectators to sit and admire it. To the right was a basin, dark in its depths.

  Finn and Thyri carried Wulf’s body down into the hollow while Nether Barr used Thunderbolt to smash a shard of rock from the base of the Magnificent Worm.

  Sassa went over to join everyone else. Sofi wasn’t with them. Sassa wondered why.

  “I can’t let her do it,” she said to Sitsi.

  “Ayanna died to save us from the thunder lizard. Sometimes sacrifice is necessary.”

  It sounded to Sassa like Sitsi was trying to convince herself. “That was one for many who weren’t already dead,” she said. “This is very different. It probably won’t work anyway.”

  “Yoki Choppa?” Sitsi turned to the warlock.

  “I’ve heard Sealter and Hampsee’s story before, from a warlock who was convinced it was true. Nether Barr believes she saw it happen.”

  “So you don’t die when you die!” Keef grinned.

  “Not the time, Keef,” scolded Sitsi.

  Sassa looked from person to person. This was all a little surreal. Was it a dream?

  “Right you lot,” said Nether Barr, returning with a wicked looking triangle of rock in her hand. “Off you bugger. Leave Sassa, me and the dead fellow.”

  “Nether Barr,” said Sitsi. “Are you certain?”

  “Yup. Now go.”

  Nether Barr took Sassa’s hand. They walked down into the basin.

  The declivity was oval, with concentric red rings in the rock walls decreasing in size down to its base where Wulf lay alone, a silhouette in the moon shadow. They’d taken him off his litter and stripped him. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, she guessed he needed to be touching the magical rock–but she didn’t like it. Despite his size, he looked vulnerable.

  There was a dark pile nearby. Wulf’s clothes. Finn and Thyri had left them for when he woke up.

  Sassa bent to hug Nether Barr. The old woman felt hollow and smelled of dried leaves.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  There were tears in Nether Barr’s eyes. She looked up at the moon, then at Sassa.

  “I’m scared now,” she said, “but I want to do this. For me, for my baby. Maybe I’ll see him. Maybe he’ll forgive me.”

  Sassa nodded.

  “Go now,” said Nether Barr.

  Sassa gripped the old lady’s hands one last time then walked away.

  Keef the Berserker was standing by the arch of the Magnificent Worm with a bundle in his arms. The rest of them had gone.

  “I hope this works,” he said.

  “Me, too,” said Sassa. She wasn’t sure that she meant it. She’d felt the magic of the place as soon as they’d arrived–or some kind of force anyway. It wasn’t just the Magnificent Worm. The slickrock around thrummed with something she’d never felt before–something powerful and good. She’d begun to believe that it might actually work. But what, exactly, would come back to life? Would it be Wulf? Or a stumbling husk of a man? Or would he be half Nether Barr–stroppy, solitary and obsessed with the pursuit of lizards?

  “It’ll get cold. You should take this.” Keef held out a blanket, which Sassa recognised as Chogolisa’s massive Owsla poncho.

  “Chogolisa will need that.”

  “Tarker’s village is nearby and they have spare tents, apparently. And besides, I think Chogolisa is too big to feel the cold.”

  “I don’t need it, but thanks.” Sassa wanted to be cold. Nether Barr was probably stabbing a rock shard into her neck at that very moment. The least Sassa could do was be uncomfortable in sympathy.

  “I’ll put it over here,” said Keef. “I’ll come back up here first thing, but if Wulf wakes up before that and you need to get to the village, go down the bare rock slope we walked up, then turn east along the path we came on.”

  “Thanks, Keef.”

  The one-eyed man nodded, smiling reassuringly, and began to walk away.

  “Let’s hope,” he said, turning, “that you don’t die when you die.”

  Sassa sat under the arch. She drew her knees up to her chest. It was quite cold. After a couple of hundred heartbeats, she got the blanket. It would be bad for the growing baby if she caught a chill. Nether Barr wouldn’t mind.

  She heard a cry from the basin. She wanted to rush down there. But no, Nether Barr had been clear. She must wait under the arch.

  She sat.

  Shamefully, she slept. She dreamed about the Warlock Queen standing atop her triangular tomb, commanding armies of half-dead Wulfs to spread over the world and kill every living thing. She sa
w the Wulf-beasts slaughtering animals by the million, burning the trees, clogging rivers with their stinking waste, killing all the Scraylings with disease and violence.

  Half aware she was in a nightmare, she forced herself awake. Clouds had blown over. It was very dark.

  There was a figure halfway across the sweep of rock that led to the arch. Sassa gasped, then realised it was too small to be Wulf.

  “Freydis!”

  “Sorry, Sassa Lipchewer!” The girl jogged up to her, waggling her hands. “I was down in the village and I was worried–we saw a big lion on the way down the hill–and I came back to protect you.” She pointed a thumb at the bow on her back. “I’m sorry, I know it was just meant to be one of you up here and—”

  “Shush. Nether Barr thought that part of the story was nonsense. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Oh good. Have you been down—” she jinked her head towards the dark bowl “—there?”

  “No. I think if he comes back—” the idea that Wulf was going to be revived seemed ridiculous now “—it will be at dawn.” She looked to the dark east. “We’ve got a while.”

  “Shall I go?”

  “No, stay with me. I don’t want you walking down to the village on your own.”

  “I have my bow!”

  “Even with your bow.”

  Sassa woke again as the sky was lightening. The chill was in her bones, despite Chogolisa’s large blanket.

  Freydis had gone. She worried about the girl for a moment, then decided that she was probably fine. There wasn’t much she could do if she wasn’t.

  Wulf hadn’t come to her. But, technically, it wasn’t dawn. The sky was light but the sun wasn’t up yet.

  It was cold. Sassa felt like she was being watched and wondered if Freydis was spying from somewhere.

  She watched the rim of the basin, willing Wulf’s shaggy head to appear.

  It didn’t.

  The sky brightened, the air warmed. Blazing sunlight stuck the tops of the bare rock hills around and raced downwards as if it were setting the red rock alight.

  Wulf didn’t come. Of course it hadn’t worked. There were tales of gods bringing people back to life, but they weren’t gods.

  She blinked away tears.

  She’d wait until the sun’s rays reached her, she told herself.

  Light descended the arch, far too fast. She closed her eyes but all too soon felt the unwelcome warmth on her face.

  The sun was undeniably up. It was time to check, time to find out, time to know it hadn’t worked. She stood.

  “Come out, Freydis!” she called, “I know you’re there!”

  Nobody appeared.

  She walked down into the basin. Maybe she’d find Nether Barr asleep.

  Wulf lay there still–of course he did–naked and cold. Nether Barr lay next to him. Dark blood stained the rock around, but she looked calm.

  The old lady’s cotton trousers and woollen top were neatly folded and placed on the bare rock a couple of paces away. Her last act had been to fold her clothes, leaving them tidy. Sassa tried to blink back tears but couldn’t. Two wonderful people had died for nothing.

  She put her face in her hands and sobbed.

  She was startled by a growl. The lion! She jumped and looked around her. No animals. No Freydis or anyone else.

  She heard the noise again and turned.

  Wulf’s chest rose. As it fell, she heard the growl again. She watched, open-mouthed. Another growl.

  There could be no doubt about it.

  Wulf the Fat was snoring.

  Tears burst from her and she choked back a sob. She dropped to her knees, grabbed her husband by the skin of his hairless chest and shook him, noticing as she did so the bruises and double pricks of blood where the snakes had bitten him.

  “What the Hel? Ow! Sassa!”

  She stopped. Wulf blinked. “Ooof!” he rubbed his chest. “Wow that hurt. What the…” he looked around at the basin, at the arch towering above, at Nether Barr lying dead next to him.

  He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “You died,” she said. “Nether Barr gave her life to bring you back.”

  “Okay. Sure. What?”

  It took a good while for Sassa to recover and to explain to Wulf what had happened. She stressed how adamant Nether Barr had been, and explained her reasons. Wulf handled it much better than Sassa did. Soon he was comforting her and apologising for dying.

  “Let’s go and find the others,” said Wulf eventually.

  He dressed, then they dressed Nether Barr. Glad as she was about Wulf, Sassa was achingly, guiltily distraught about the woman’s death.

  “Right,” said Wulf, scooping up the dead, light lady into his arms. “Shall we?”

  Sassa stared at Nether Barr’s body, shaking her head.

  “She chose this,” said Wulf. “She would have wanted us to grieve and we will. We will call our child Nether Barr as she asked, and we will think of her every time we say that name. But we will not be consumed by guilt. She would not want that, and it will tear us apart if we are.”

  “But—”

  “Guilt is self-destructive and pointless, Sassa. Nether Barr gave me my life back,” he grinned his wolfish, naughty grin, the one Sassa had fallen in love with. “And I intend to make the most of it. Not to mope. It’s what she’d want.”

  Sassa nodded, feeling far from comforted.

  She walked down the slickrock hill next to Wulf, who carried Nether Barr. She felt otherworldly, as if Wulf’s death had been a dream. No, it was more like she was dreaming now. She pinched her arm, expecting to wake in the cold night with Wulf dead in the hollow.

  But no, they walked on, through the increasingly hot day–the first day of the rest of Wulf’s second life.

  “What was Valhalla like?” she asked.

  “Tor told me not to tell you.”

  “You have to keep it a secret from the living?”

  “No, just you.”

  “Seriously, what did you see or… was there anything?”

  “I didn’t know I was dead until you told me. I remember fighting the big snake. Next thing, you were trying to pull the skin off my chest.”

  “No Valhalla?”

  “No anything.”

  “Nail a quail.”

  “But I don’t think I was properly dead. You die when you die. I didn’t.”

  “I suppose so.”

  The rest of the Wootah and Calnians appeared from the valley, heading uphill towards them. They were all there, including Freydis.

  Wulf raised his arms. “Woooooo-tah!” he shouted.

  “Wootah!” shouted everyone, apart from Sofi and Yoki Choppa.

  All the shouters began to run up the hill. Paloma Pronghorn arrived a couple of heartbeat later, towing Freydis. Sassa wondered how Freydis had gained the strength to hold on like that, and to move her legs so fast. Also why she’d gone all the way back to the village alone, when she’d said that she was protecting Sassa. What had the girl been doing up there?

  Paloma hugged Wulf, then held him at arm’s length, looking him up and down. “Death suits you,” she said. “I think you’ve lost some weight. You diet when you die.”

  Freydis smiled up at Sassa. “I’m glad it worked,” she said.

  Chapter 8

  Red River Ruined

  They said goodbye to Chief Tarker and Gaven the warlock the following morning. It was an odd one for Finn the Deep. Sassa and Wulf hugged Tarker and Sofi held the chief’s eye in a meaningful but tough way, as if they’d all been through a major trial together. Which they had. But Finn hadn’t spoken to Tarker or Gaven the whole time, so he had to fake his “aren’t we close now, what a shame to be parting” goodbye. Tarker, Gaven and, of course, Thyri all gave him odd looks as if he’d done the wrong thing.

  It was unsettling, but he soon forgot about it because he couldn’t stop staring at Wulf. The Wootah chief was striding along with the same easy half-smile on his face as ever. He looked exact
ly the same.

  But was he the same? He’d died, for the love of Loakie! Were there invisible demons on his shoulders? Was he a demon?

  Meanwhile, Ottar dashed about, pulling at everyone’s clothes and then looking around with his arms outstretched and palms upward. Everyone knew he was asking where his new friend Nether Barr was, but everyone was pretending they had no idea what Ottar wanted. Or at least that was Finn’s take on it. Maybe everyone else didn’t understand him and it was just Finn who was being the cowardly shit and not explaining what had happened.

  In the end Freydis told Ottar that Nether Barr had gone back to where she came from. That stopped him crying, but he was still miserable. Inadvertently, thought Finn, the girl had been very profound.

  The Wootah breakfasted with the Wormslanders, then they put Nether Barr on a pyre and set light to her. Luckily Ottar was too busy netting lizards and letting them go to notice the funeral activity. He was getting much better at catching lizards, but Finn didn’t see the point if he was going to let them all go.

  While they stood in respectful silence around the roaring pyre, Finn looked at Paloma Pronghorn. She was beautiful and lithe as the lion they’d seen the night before. She hadn’t spoken more than a couple of words to him since they’d all got back together, so it wasn’t clear if his policy of being cool with her was working or not.

  Afterwards, Chief Tarker gathered the Wootah and Calnians.

  “The Meadows are almost five hundred miles to the south-west,” she said. Finn groaned. “The Red River runs near to The Meadows,” she continued, “so I suggest building rafts and taking that route.”

  Finn almost choked. Raft travel on the Red River was a doddle! They could just sit down and fish for a few days and they’d be at The Meadows. Finally, the end was in sight.

  At the news that they’d be heading along the river, Ottar leapt about and shook his head. He gabbled something at Freydis.

  “Ottar says the Red River has gone bad,” Freydis explained matter-of-factly.

  “Tell him we’ll try, and if it seems dangerous we’ll come off it,” said Wulf.

  Freydis did, but Ottar was having none of it.

  “You can ride with me in my awesome canoe,” announced Keef.